Read Online Carbonel and Calidor by Barbara Sleigh - Free Book Online Page A

creature had reached her there was a second ‘pop’!
    â€˜Crikey, there’s another! And another! And another!’ said John. ‘It’s like a machine-gun going off “Pop! Pop! Pop!” ’ One by one the line of studs running away down the middle of the road rose from their holes and scuttled up to Rosemary, till she was surrounded by a bouncing horde of them: their glass ‘eyes’ glinting back and front as they all jumped up and down, as a dog does when it is pleased to see you, and all of them twittering, like a cage full of sparrows.
    â€˜You see,’ said Rosemary with lifted chin. ‘It proves I’m right. They aren’t like cats!’
    â€˜Or much like crabs either,’ said John shortly.
    â€˜I don’t see why they have to be like anything,’ went on Rosemary. ‘I think they are just themselves. I shall call them ...’ She stopped and looked thoughtfully at the swarming mass at her feet. ‘I know. I shall call them the Scrabbles ... because they are a bit like crabs, and they ... sort of scrabble with their paws.’
    â€˜All right. Call them what you like,’ said John in an exasperated voice. ‘They hop about so, I can’t count them, but there must be dozens of the things! I suppose you’ve made your point. P’raps they do look more like crabs than cats. But what are we going to do with them now?’
    The first flush of Rosemary’s triumph at having proved John wrong for once had begun to ebb away.
    â€˜It’s going to be a bit awkward if they are prancing about all over the place when it gets dark,’ went on John. ‘How are cars to know where the middle of the road is? Can’t you make them go back again?’
    â€˜I suppose I can try,’ replied Rosemary doubtfully. She thought for a moment, and then she said to the Scrabbles in her best polite voice: ‘Of course we are both very pleased to have met you, but hadn’t you better be going home now? I mean back to your holes?’ She made flapping go-away movements with her hands. The Scrabbles stopped bouncing, and shuffled together in a tight little group, and their twittering dropped to a sad little moan. Then, as if they had come to a decision among themselves, they sat firmly down where they were, their front eyes glinting up at Rosemary, and their back eyes, on which of course they were sitting, protected from the dust and dirt of the road by their back paws which they folded underneath them.
    â€˜Well, that hasn’t worked,’ said John.
    â€˜Could we pick them up one by one and put them back in their holes?’ said Rosemary doubtfully. But she made no move to do it.
    Reluctantly John stooped down, and gingerly stretched out his hand to the nearest Scrabble. Just as he was about to pick it up, quick as lightning, it turned and nipped him on the thumb.
    â€˜Ow! That hurt!’ he said.
    The creatures were silent now, but very watchful.
    â€˜Well,’ said John. ‘I don’t see what else we can do. Maybe they’ll go back of their own accord if we leave them to it. Let’s go home,’ he went on. ‘I vote we put off going to Tucket Towers till tomorrow. It must be getting frightfully late.’
    Rosemary agreed. They turned to go back to Highdown with a feeling of relief. But the relief was short lived. They had only gone a few yards before there was a shrill, excited twittering, and the Scrabbles came streaming after them, their feet pattering on the hard road with a sound like the keys of forty typewriters all typing together.
    â€˜That’s torn it!’ said John. ‘If they want to follow I don’t see how we can stop them.’
    â€˜But if they come home with us, what shall we do with them? And what on earth will Uncle Zack and Mrs Bodkin say?’ said Rosemary. ‘If we tell them they are road studs come alive, they’ll have a fit. Isn’t there somewhere